Hampshire's amateur golfers defied the driving rain and a halfway 1-3 deficit to win the South East League Championship for the sixth time at dreary South Beds GC last night.

They and rivals Berks, Bucks and Oxon had to share the Daily Telegraph Shield after last year's event was rained off.

When the rain began tumbling out of the leaden skies over Luton yesterday there were fears of a repeat but the South Beds course is chalk-based and soaked it up like a sponge.

And Hampshire's finest proved that when the going gets rough, the tough get going. Outgoing captain Lionel Smith described it as their finest performance during his three-year leadership.

"They showed character and a high degree of quality to come back the way they did when the conditions were at their worst. It seemed that BB&0 just didn't fancy the conditions, while we thrived in them," he said.

Hampshire have lost once during Smith's captaincy but he admitted they faced an uphill task after BB&O, unbeaten winners of the northern group of the South East League, had bossed the morning foursomes.

Only Brockenhurst Manor duo Kevin Weeks and Martin Young managed a victory in the four foursomes events, beating Mark Housego and Clive Bowler 4&3.

It meant that Hampshire went into the singles needing to win at least five of the eight matches to overturn BB&0's advantage.

"They knew exactly what they had to do," said Smith, "and they did it with a great sense of purpose. Through nine holes we were leading in five singles. I told them to keep it that way, and they did."

In fact, Hampshire took five and two halves to finish with a 7-5 victory. It means they have now held the trophy through each year of Smith's three-year captaincy.

Weeks now takes over the captaincy knowing he has a tough act to follow. But Weeks, who has been a top Hampshire golfer for four decades, is a tough customer himself.

When darkness was closing in and plunging temperatures were adding to the golfers' misery, Weeks came fighting back from three down after five holes to play his last 13 in six-under par. Even then he was still one down playing the last, but it was so dark that Housego lost his way and drove his ball into the woods. Weeks split the fairway, took the hole and halved the match.

Hampshire number one Darren Henley had a similar match against Tom Lawson. The Stoneham player was three down after five, hit back to go one up with two to play only to three-putt the 17th to finish up with a half.

Henley's Stoneham clubmate, David Porter, was all square with Dave Addison going through six holes, but after back-to-back birdies and a couple of pars, the Hampshire man was suddenly four up and never looked back.

Martin Young (3&1), David Butwell (4&3), Ryan Henley (5&4) and Jonathon Young (3&2) were Hampshire's other winners.

Ernie Els was again crowned Cisco World Match Play champion at Wentworth yesterday after beating Spain's Sergio Garcia 2&1 in the final.

Hampshire's Matt Blackey (ten under) followed back-to-back wins on the Challenge Tour with 15th place in the Fortis Bank Challenge in Holland yesterday, won by Belgium's Didier Do Vooght.